In pursuit of the diamond deal

Monday, December 25, 2023 | 730 Views |

Shiny stones: Masisi negotiated arguably the country's best ever deal involving diamonds PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO

At around 3am on the morning of July 1, while most of the nation was fast asleep, a couple of local business journalists were doggedly fighting off sleep, refreshing emails every minutes, scouring social media and shooting off Whatsapp messages to sources, regardless of the ungodly hour.

There was no choice. Having pursued the single biggest story in the country’s economy for the better part of five years, there was really no question of sleeping when matters finally neared a head. That would be akin to travelling 20 hours to the world famous New Year’s Eve party at Times Square in New York, then falling asleep at 10pm.

The story the handful of journalists and I were burning the midnight oil for, is of course, the now historic diamond deal between De Beers and government.

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